Thursday, September 15, 2011

Q: Why are people making a big deal over Amanda Waller's new, sexy body?

Aww, you little dumb ass! There are multiple layers as to why making Amanda Waller no longer fat is idiotic. I'll try not to run through the ones that aren't immediately obvious.

Nice figure!

First off, the character benefits more from being fat than from being thin. No, really. Comics are a visual medium. From a visual perspective, having the character be physically unfit is a great way to say "this character is not from the part of the DC universe that punches Metallo. She's from he part of the world where there's meetings in the Pentagon." She doesn't have the strength of a human who engages in regular exercise. She's not that kind of character.

Making her more like Rosario Dawson serves no visual purpose. She's just some hot woman. It takes away a little of the element of gritty non-fantasy.

Second: It takes away the character's uniqueness. Those of you complaining that the character was a cliche must know even less about her than I do. I never even read her comics in Borders and even I know she's not just a woman with a stick up her fat ass. Here's the thing, though, even if she's a cliche, now she's all wrong because ANGRY AUTHORITATIVE FIGURES ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SEXY.

Mutation-gate!

Seriously, find me one, ONE angry police Captain, one school principal, one ANGRY boss who happens to be sexy. You can't. That's not part of that particular cliche. It's just trading the Cliche of "Angry Black Woman"(which by the way, barely surmises the character at all) for the even bigger cliche of "And she's also sexy". She doesn't have to be sexy. Does Nick Fury have to be sexy? Does Prof X need to be sexy? Do we need sexy Splinter? Some characters don't need to be sexy. Amanda Waller is among them.

And yes, she was made sexy in the Green Lantern movie. You see, many people didn't complain about it there(I sort of did), but honestly that just unmasks this for what it is: a shallow Hollywood move. See, we expect this sort of thing from Hollywood because we've come to be used to this bullshit being used in adaptations all the time. But here's the thing: The DC universe, even the newly reinvented one, is bigger than any movie universe. See, Green Lantern was just that: a movie, limited by what went in the frame. The DC universe is united: It's a universe that has Supergirl, Wonder Woman and Black Canary. It has filled it's hot girl quota. You don't really have need to change Waller.

Also, no one fucking saw Green Lantern. Regardless of fat.

Again, as with those Star Wars changes, you gotta wonder who they're for. Amanda Waller has had a pretty good run as a black, fat female. She even has a couple "other media" appearances. And the book she's in has Corset Harley Queen getting arrested by Black Canary's rump, apparently. Was there ever a feeling this character would bring in more people if she were sexier? Even Michael Bay movies have non-pretty folk in them.

It's true, just ask Steve Buscemi!

It's just a head-scratching choice. It's fantasy, yes, but even fantasy has niches that can't be fulfilled by idealized people. You'd think DC, of all people, would understand this. The DC of Etta Candy and Jimmy Olsen. The DC of Alfred, James Gordon, and Harvey Bullock. The DC of Prof Hamilton. You'd think they'd understand how in a world of fantasy, not everything can be THE SAME.

One of this guys is asking you to be prepared for a coup . The other is asking you to be prepared to put hair on your horns . Names are fun....

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